Picasso and Lump

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

I’m quite sure I picked up Picasso and Lump: a Dachshunds Odyssey by photographer David Douglas Duncan at the Wall Book Sale a few years ago.

Told mostly thru photos and photo description, this book is a glimpse into the famous painter’s life as well as the lives of those he loved.

I’m always surprised what painter Pablo Picasso looks like. That might be why I picked this book up. Or maybe it’s bc Lump is sooo cute! This book is short and sweet relying on pictures and has very few words. It gives a small glimpse into Picasso’s life, how he worked and who he surrounded himself with. It does leave the reader wanting to know more, about the man and about the dog. It’s not clear if Lump was only visiting or he remained with Picasso after these photos were taken. It’s also not apparent if this was complied all in one day or over a longer period of time. It made me want to know more about both subjects, and I will keep my eye out for other books about them. These photos evoke a dreaminess of life that pulls one in. I would recommend this book for fans of the author or subject, both artist famous in their own right. I would recommend it for fans of slice of life photography, black and white shots of the 60s, 70s or 80s, and those who love dogs.

What is your favorite photography book?

This review is part Thursday of my Week of Books. Check out my new YouTube/BookTube Channel: Mad Cat Quilts for more book content (plus cats, garden, sewing, eating, asmr, etc…!).

The Brooklyn Follies

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

When creating my goodreads account, I couldn’t remember if I had read The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster yet. I had not so picked it up right away!

Nathan Glass moves to brooklyn to die. Instead he finds new reasons for living.

This novel hits all the Auster notes I look for in his later books; Brooklyn places I love and recognize, Vermont locations that I love and recognize, family connections, disconnections, and reconciliations, ruminations on death and the shortness of life, and the magic in the mundane of living. Not an overly short novel, this was extremely easy to read and flew by. I’m always slightly surprised when this is so for an Auster book, as the first book I read by him was so dense and confusing (City of Glass). Another theme of Auster’s that I enjoy is that of men who love women for their feminine qualities, their beauty and temperance, but who also understand that there is more to females than just that. They have this understanding, but they cannot fully understand the women themselves. Perhaps due to my age and upbringing, I understand the struggle that he depicts in his aging male characters. That of aging men, who love women, who want to understand them, but have outdated ideas of how to interact with them and how to love them. Glass, in this book, takes a more open minded approach to the women in his life than many of Auster’s heroes. This book also have a few side plots that I liked and were well developed, and could have led to full books themselves. A nicely complex view of one person’s life and how it intersects with all others. I would recommend this book to those who have read Auster before, those who like quiet books about people’s lives, those who live in Brooklyn or Southern Vermont, and people who like stories about second starts later in life.

Have you read this book? Would you call it a “quiet” book?

This review is part Wednesday of my Week of Books. Check out my new YouTube/BookTube Channel: Mad Cat Quilts for more book content (plus cats, garden, sewing, eating, asmr, etc…!).

The Story of Doctor Doolittle

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

I have no idea where I picked up this little copy of The Story of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting but isn’t it cute??

The wise Doctor Doolittle likes animals more than people. When his human practice fails, he gets some good advice from an unexpected avenue and his life changes forever!

I have always enjoyed the old movie of Dr Doolittle (1967) so I was excited to pick it up. I had no previous inkling about the source material of the movie, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. It’s definitely a childrens book, with simple writing and language. It’s also definitely of it’s era, with lots of outdated ideas and language. Reading this book today, it’s quite racist and sexist. It follows the movie pretty closely, minus the human companions and love story and (thank goodness) the singing, where the Good Doctor travels around the world after learning all the animal languages. I liked that all the animal had personality, but some of those were even also a little (animal) “racist” or prejudice (ex: the pig is depicted as a lowly, whiney character). There were also a few outdated ideas that struck me as not making sense with the story. For instance when the animals are traveling, they all eat fish. I mean, how could they speak the fish’s language, but still eat them?! It was obviously written in a time when being vegetarian was virtually unheard of, even if you love animals. All that being said, I was happy to read this book. This tiny pocket sized book was enjoyable to read and as I said before, it’s to cute! I always find it interesting to read the original version of children’s stories that are well known. I find that they are never exactly like the more modern versions that I am most familiar with (Peter Pan is a good example of this and well worth a read). Sometimes they are better, or more interesting, sometimes you see why certain changes were made. I would recommend this book to those who read children’s classics, those who like the 1967 movie, or those who like children’s books in general. And of course, all who wish they, too, could speak to the animals.

This review is part Tuesday of my Week of Books. Check out my new YouTube/BookTube Channel: Mad Cat Quilts for more book content (plus cats, garden, sewing, eating, asmr, etc…!).

A Week Of Books

In honor of my first BookTube video and in order to get some of my many book reviews out into the world, let’s have a Week Of Books!

Since the beginning of the year and since lockdown, I’ve rekindled my love of and verve for reading. I’ve read about a book a week since end of March. I started a goodreads account and set a challenge of 50 books for the year. So far, I’m doing well on that goal. I’ve started posting one book review per week here, but now my back log of reviews is getting quite long. Starting today, we’ll have a book a day to speed things up.

How many books have you read this year? How many would you like to read?

Video | Non BookTuber does the Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag | YouTube Newbie

Hello!
Thanks for joining me! I’m restarting my youtube channel and I appreciate you checking it out. Here I attempt a very late Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag. Have you read any of these books?

Mid Year Book Freak Out Questions:
1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2020
2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2020.
3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to.
4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year.
5. Biggest disappointment.
6. Biggest surprise.
7. Favorite new author. (Debut or new to you)
8. Newest fictional crush.
9. Newest favorite character.
10. Book that made you cry.
11. Book that made you happy.
14. Most beautiful book so far this year
15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Books Mentioned:
The Quiet American (1955) Graham Green http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/6/18/the-quiet-american

Red Dragon (1981) http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/7/26/red-dragon and The Silence of the Lambs (not yet read, 1988) Thomas Harris

Dayworld (1985) http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/5/24/dayworld and Dayworld Rebel (not read yet, 1987) Philip Jose Farmer

Notes from a Small Island (1995) Bill Bryson http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/8/22/notes-from-a-small-island

Let’s all Kill Candice (2002) http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/4/9/lets-all-kill-constance and

Something Wicked This Ways Comes (1962) http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/5/31/something-wicked-this-way-comes Ray Bradbury

The Black Tower (1975) PD James http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/4/22/the-black-tower

Loafing Down Long Island (1921) Charles Hanson Townes http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/4/3/loafing-down-long-island

Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) Diane Wynne Jones http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/6/30/howls-moving-castle

Joy in the Morning (1947) PG Wodehouse http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2019/8/29/joy-in-the-morning

The Adventure of Doctor Doolittle (1920) Hugh Lofting

A Mind to Murder (1963) PD James http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog/2020/6/12/a-mind-to-murder

Be Here Now (1971) Ram Das

Blog: http://www.madcatquilts.com/blog
Instagram: http://instagram.com/madcat1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/120401161-ana-mo-shoshin

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I Garden - Urban Style

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

I think I Garden: Urban Style, Grow the Garden that Fits Your Space & Schedule by Reggie Solomon and Michael Nolan was either bought second hand online, or at a book sale. Either way, I’ve had it for a few years and haven’t taken very good care of it. Some of the pages were stuck together with water damage (or god knows what).

Focusing mostly on pot-gardens and raised-beds that can be easily adapted to just about any small urban space, I Garden: Urban Style gives advice, first hand accounts, projects and info for the city gardener.

After reading Little House in the Suburbs and not really caring for it, I was a little shy to start in on another large format gardening advice book. I’m glad I did read it, though, bc I ended up really enjoying this book. OK, really enjoy might be pitching it a bit hard. This is essentially a instruction manual, so it’s hard to really enjoy something like that. I think that I liked this book so much bc I had disliked the last garden book so much. This is a much more straightforward, instructional, book for those who want to start a garden, no matter where you live or how much space you have. I really appreciated that I Garden was instructive without being “cute”. There were many first hands account from gardeners and others in the industry (most of which I skipped TBH, but that might be helpful or insightful). I think the information is easily adapted to any space, big or small. The focus of this book is really small or shared spaces and there are tips for that situation. I also enjoyed that this was a no nonsense book, but it felt like a first book or a new writer. Sometimes that feeling or knowledge will make a book less enjoyable but in this case, I felt like the writer was letting me in on something. They didn’t know everything, but what they did know they wanted to share with me. I would recommend this book for those who are just starting their garden, especially if they are in an urban or small setting. Perhaps you are renting? Still living with your parents? This is a good garden starter book for you. I would also recommend this book to those who, like me, are working thru some garden books to improve their garden skills.

Do you live in a place where a large garden isn’t possible? Have you ever made a container garden or raised bed garden? Did you use an resources when making your garden?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

I love weird, interesting or odd buildings! If you’re looking for some animal themed buildings to visit, here’s a good list. Although one of these is in NJ, I have never been to any. I got really close to the Duck on long Island a few times, but I could never find it. Maybe it’s time for a road trip?
I want to try a few of these one pot vegetarian meals soon!
More studies to confirm that cat’s blink to say hello. My personal advice when meeting a new or standoffish cat is to make eye contact, slow blink and with eyes closed, turn your head away from the cat.
This was a sweet little reading interview with Neil Gaiman. I’ll have to check out a few of the books he mentioned.
There’s a plant shop by my house that is home to two fluffy cats! I got to meet one a little more closely the other day!

September Plant Update

September was an interesting month for plant observations. I usually find that September is one of my favorite months. It’s Summer, but not summer. It’s Fall, but not fall. This year was more Fall than previous years: the weather took a chilly turn and plants were not as vibrant as other years. It was a good month to watch the fast forward of the natural entropy.

Our clematis bush pretty much took over our porch this year.

But quickly declined in Sept. (See that black bee??)

And now really looks like old man’s beard.

We saw quite a few good mushrooms in Sept.

Our morning glories also took over this year, our backyard is swimming in them!

This flower has all sorts of bee tracks on it!

One new and ready to open.

Gnome interlude.

Afore mentioned bee.

Our neighbor’s sedum gets the prize for most bugs ever.

The bees started getting sleepy by the end of the month.

Our sensitive plants have been blooming!

This pothos is starting to climb the walls again.

I’m interested to see what October brings for the all the plants. We’re still getting tomatoes, flowers, buds and leaves. Will that change in Oct? I’m nervous that it will be very cold!

How were your plant observations this month? Is the weather changing by you? Are the seasons changing?

Bullet Journal Check-in | How I Use My Year at a Glance

Usually when I’m first making a new Bullet Journal, I write out a year at a glance. Many Bullet Journalers find this tedious: writing all the small dates and getting all the months written out correctly. I do find that I almost always make a mistake or two. But I also think it’s worth it to look ahead in the year and mark down events or dates that I want to remember throughout the year.

In this space, I mostly mark down major holidays, bdays, reoccurring events (like festivals, fairs, etc…), or things that are planned far in advance. I find that having all this info in one place, right in my journal, prevents me from constantly having to look up the dates of things I’m interested in.

I like to create the spread, then list all the dates, events, and bdays that I can think of. If I don’t now when an event will fall I look it up online. Some I know the general time, but not the exct date. Some bdays I forget and have to ask family or friends (I’m terrible at bdays).

This year, this has been particulary challenging as many events were cancelled. I’ve also found that many events that I look forward to were planned, scheduled, and then no further info was given. Who knows what late 2020 and early 2021 will be? Now that I have my new book, I’m still planning on setting up the dates the way that I normally do, but I have the feeling I’ll be doing a lot of extra research and double checking.

Do you use a year at a glance? In what ways do you find it useful?

2020 Monthly Goals | September Recap and October Goals

September was a bit of a mixed bag for goals. I felt quite productive and I did fulfill many life goals which I don’t list here. I’m not sure if that contributed to these blog goals not getting finished. Perhaps. For my September list, I would say I fell right in the middle.

Have two quilt finishes
Ahhhhh Back to quilting and back to finishing quilts. I do not think it’s unreasonable to get two finishes a month done for the rest of the year. We’ll see how Sept goes.
I guess it was actually far too much to ask, as I didn’t even finish one quilt.

Stretch
Gosh. I really need this in my life.
I’m slowly getting better about this. I have worked at least a few stretches into my morning routine.

Swim/beach
September swims!!!
It was colder than I would have liked so not as many swims were had as I had hoped. But some were!

Make 1 video
Ooof, I was close to actually getting this goal done in the very start of the month. Some set backs will make me have to fight for this one.
Soooooo, I sort of completed this goal. I’m getting closer, at least.

Tattoo work
I want to make an appointment before the end of the month and practice at least on fake skin to get back of tattooing.
Ooof, no work was really done on this.

Book step two
Step one was tiny, step two should be a bit ore calculated.
Nope.

So for October, I want to revisit some of these goals and build on some others. Some are new!

Two quilt finishes
I need to prioritize this but am excited.

Make 6 videos
Here we go.

Book tattoo appointment/practice tattoos.
I want to get a tattoo in 2020 and I want to give a tattoo in 2020.

Go on a over night trip + 1 day trip
I want to make sure to get away a little this month.

Take Irving in the car
We are working with our “bad” cat to make him a travel cat!

What are your goals for October? Did you roll over any goals from last month? did you complete any goals that were not on your list?

Mad Cat Garden | September 2020

Although September was still a good garden month, the weather and our harvest definitely took a turn towards Winter. I feel like the last few years, Sept has been one of the more lush months for the garden, but this month, you could see that everything is winding down in the garden. Our tomatoes got extremely scraggly, our herbs bolted and shed leaves, our peppers still produced but the fruit got smaller and smaller.

Even in the beginning of the month our front bed tomatoes were struggling a little. This was our orginal bed and we think that we will refresh the dirt very much before planting it next year to see if fruits and veggies do better than they did this season. The only issue we have with changing up this bed is that this is where our brilliant orange thyme lives. This thyme bush is the pride and joy of our garden and we hope not to disturb it too much.

The rest of our herbs in front beds got leggy and sparse by the beginning of Sept. We are working on taking some cutting and propgating them to see if we can over winter herbs in the green house. Overall, I’m excited to have this bed be all kitchen herbs again next year, but I hope to find a way to utilize them more in cooking.

Our back yard beds were pretty full at the start of the month and fell off as the month progressed. Our flower bed did well and we are excited to devote a bigger bed to this next year. Our zucchini was still thriving in the start of the month but by the end, it’s only producing flowers. We have not eaten any of these flowers yet, only the fruit. Does anyone have a great recipe for squash blossoms to share?

We’re finalizing (I won’t say perfecting) our water system. We hope to forage at least one more water barrel.

Our raspberries produced more in Sept. Or maybe the squirrels just ate less? Either way, it’s a delight to wander out into the garden in the morning as pick a few berries to eat throughout the day.
Our bussels sprouts, which we planted in the spring, are still around, the brussels themselves never got very big and I’m not sure if we should have picked them ages ago? We still haven’t, so we’ll see how that goes, or if we ever do pick them. Both they and the kale have quite a storm of white flies when you brush by them, but they don’t seem to harm much.

We’ve been working on the green house, figuring out projects for storage, heating, and comfort. We have moved a few plants inside and are making plans for what will overwinter there. We are also diligently collecting sand, every time we go to the beach, to line the floor with. My husband’s idea, he’s not sure that it will benefit the GH but it sure looks cool.

Even though the garden slowed down considerably, we are still eating from it almost every day. We had our first soup of the fall and were able to use some items. We have still be getting tomatoes, but more and more of them have to ripen off the vine. We planted a few late lettuces and chard which we hope to enjoy soon. The garden is not at it’s peak, but it’s not done yet.

What was you garden like in September? Is it lush or slowing down? Do you have a green house? If so, how do you utilize yours?

The Way Through the Woods

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

I had a hankering to listen to another Inspector Morse Mystery. The Way Through the Woods is the 10th book in the series by Colin Dexter.

Morse is called back from his yearly furlough, perhaps to his surprise, but not to his chagrine, to take of the case of a young beautiful swedish girl who went missing over a year ago.

I’ve been working my way thru the Inspector Morse books by listening to the audio books read by Kevin Whately who plays Lewis in the tv series. And let me tell you, they are a delight. I love Whately as a reader. I think I say this every review of these audio books, but I feel that his having played the Lewis really lends him to be able to know the books and feel for Lewis, Morse and their relationship, how they feel about the victims and how they decipher the mysteries. I’m not sure I would like these books so well if not for that. Dexter is definitely a writer of his time: sexist, racist, and outdated by todays standard. It’s interesting to see, especially in this book written in 1992, how ideas are now changing in the books and in the real world. This is the first book where more modern amenities are mentioned, like car phones, the first book that does’t feel very very old. I find that books and stories set in England tend to seem older than they are and I would say that this was definitely true about many of the Morse series I have read perviously. Although they were written in the 1970s thru the 1990s, they feel like a time set apart, too different from now to only be less than 50 years ago. It’s nice to see the author and creations step closer to the modern day. And luckily, Morse doesn’t loose his cantakerous nature, poor health habits, or surly demeanor. His flaw of thinking so highly of himself is especially noted in this book, and it’s interesting that it is sad, tragic maybe, but not un-endearing. Although he is a mean boss, a puffed up self important detective, and a lecherous male, I find that I still like Morse. I would recommend this book for those who have read other Morse novels, I think this was my 3rd favorite of the series. Those who enjoy cop dramas with some comedic elements, British mysteries, and or fans of the characters from the TV series may also enjoy this book.

Who are some unlikely characters that you like despite their flaws?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

I wasn’t able to see the Harvest full moon last night, but my friend @mermaidtrousers got an amazing pic (above). This is the first of two October full moons, so hopefully I can catch the next one!
I don’t really believe that New Jersey is the food center of the world, but it is interesting to read all the different and diverse companies that call NJ home. Not listed is Sun Ramen, xx.
This is a bittersweet story of tic toc, humanity, and lack of dignified old age.
I thought this list of Banned Books, or those that people want to ban was fascinating. I was shocked at how many comics made it to the list.
I’ve been seeing some good mushrooms this week!

September in Review

In many ways, September is always my favorite month. I love local’s Summer, I love the end of season veggies, swimming, beach days, and the crowds of Summer dispersing. I love that back to school feeling you get around this time. There’s so much potential for making plans for the end of the year.

We try to get in as many #septemberswims as we can so we had a few beach days. After not going all summer, due to the crowds and people not following the guidelines to be safe, this was a real treat. Now anyone at the beach is spread out and happy to keep away from others. A big change from August beachgoers.

We tried to get back to walking and searching out victory gardens this month. We saw some #watchercats. We were able to observe the celestial, the garden: the growing and dying off of our plants, insects buzzing everywhere.

We ate a lot of good food this month, even venturing out to a restaurant. September was a busy month and a month to make big decisions and long term plans, but it was also a time to relax. The weather took a cold turn, which can also bring the dread of Winter.

I’m hoping October will extend some of the September themes and feels. We’ll see.

Mad Cat Capsule | Times Flies!

Just the other day I was thinking how much I was excited to start looking thru my reserve clothes to start my Fall Capsule Wardrobe.

“It’s too early for that!” I thought to myself

But lo and behold, September is almost over!!

Sometimes I’m ready to move on to my next capsule right away. Other times, I’m perfectly happy with the current capsule and it’s working for me and the weather.

What’s great about creating and keeping a capsule wardrobe is that you can change the rules at any time, or make them up as you go along.

My advice to those new to this technique is choose your method and stick to it. When first starting out it’s good to have more parameters, more rules. But for those who have the basics down, go nuts. Give your self challenges, keep it interesting, but also keep learning.

For my Fall capsule, I’m ready for sweaters and leggings and long socks. I’ve started pulling a few items, but am getting excited to really go thru my clothing stock and see what cozy items I can find. Shopping my closet certainly fulfills the urge for “new school clothes shopping” I get around this time. It’s better for my wallet and the environment to pull out old favorites rather than buy new. It’s turned really chilly by us and wrapping up in a well worn thermal tee, my favorite jeans, and a chunky sweater sounds just fine.

Have you started creating your next capsule? Do you change it up every quarter or stick to the same routine? What season are you in where you live?

Zero Waste Recipe | Our Favorite Summer Meal 2019: (Almost Vegan) Potato Poblano Tacos

Yep, you read that right. We made these tacos a ton last summer! in 2019 our poblano crop was HUGE! The pepper bushes were huge (several feet wide and tall), the peppers were huge, and our taco consumption matched that. But we only got about 6 poblanos this year!

As a final nod to summer, I wanted to have this meal at least once! As usual, I don’t have a recipe for this meal, so this variation is a little different than last year. I didn’t really measure anything, so I will just mark what I used. Scale up or down depending on how many you want to feed. I also only had regular sour cream which keeps this meal form being totally vegan.

Ingredients:
potato (1/2 a baking potato)
sweet potato (1/2 a Japanese sweet potato)
poblano peppers (3 smallish peppers)
garlic (about 4 cloves)
fresh corn (1 ear)
olive oil
tomatoes (a handful of mini ones)
red onion (about a quarter of a small onion)
sour cream
lime
tortillas

Equipment:
knife
pot
frying pan
spatula

Cut potatoes and sweet potatoes into bit sized cubes, boil or steam until for tender. Fine dice garlic, rough dice peppers, tomatoes, and red onion and cook corn off cob, while potatoes are cooking. Add cooked potatoes and garlic into a frying pan with olive oil and fry until potatoes get brown and a bit crispy. After potatoes are crisped, add peppers and cook until tender. Add corn and cook mixture for 2-3 min more. Set aside veg mixture to cool slightly. While potato mix is cooking and cooling combine red onion and tomatoes in a bowl. These are toppings and add a little juice to the tacos so the tacos are not too dry. Place potatoes mix in a bowl for easy assembly. In the same frying pan (no need to clean it, just bush out any chunks), heat the tortillas thru. Assemble tacos with potato mix, tomato mix, sour cream and lime. Eat and enjoy!

Some notes:
- The only reason this is not a completely vegan meal is bc we only had sour cream. Feel free to use vegan cream, cashew crema, or yogurt, to omit all together.
- These tacos are inspired by ones we used to eat often in Brooklyn. The potatoes and poblanos are essential but everything else can be changed. We had corn, so we used that this time. The sweet potatoes were tasty, but it can easily be made without. Add what you have or what you’ve grown. We usually have this with picked red onions, but I hadn’t made any this time. Add black beans, whatever you like.
- This meal would be good over rice, or as a burrito, or as a burrito bowl.

Making your own tortillas and sour cream would have made this a more zero waste meal. I used up the last of some store bought tortillas, but making them myself would have been better. We reused the plastic bag that these came in. The sour cream is also not zero waste as it comes in plastic. When we eat all the cream, we will clean and reuse the container for seed sprouting in the Spring. The peppers and tomatoes came from our garden. The sweet potatoes, corn, and onion were all from a local farmers market. Eating as local as possible helps this meal be more zero waste.

Did you have a favorite meal this Summer or last?

Comparing Stitches

Thankfully, I’ve moved from sewing fans to straight lines on my latest quilt. Which means I’m almost finished with the quilting! But it got me thinking about all the other quilts I’ve quilted with fans. Here is my latest fan stitches compared to ones I completed in 2014.

I thought there would be a big difference between the more recent (above) and the stitches from 6 years ago (below). but it wasn’t very noticeable to my eyes. It’s a little hard to see in photos as the scale is not perfect. I feel that I strive to make my stitches smaller and closer together but I also realize that my stitches will never very very fine.

I love quilting as a meditation, so I try not to think too hard on “perfecting” my stitches, but improving is okay! I know I’m done when I feel my stitches becoming too long or wobbly, signaling that my eyes or hands are tired. That’s a good time to stop.

Do you set some time aside to quilt each day and stop after that allotted time, or do you hand quilt until you just can hand quilt any more?

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy’s Quilts.

Notes From a Small Island

One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.

I was super excited to get Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, partly bc I have read a few other books of his and enjoyed them and partly bc I love almost anything England centric.

20 years after moving to England, travel writer Bill Bryson is moving home to the USA. Since he loves living in Briton, he takes one last trip around his small island.

Ugh. I really wanted to love this book. But I did not. This book seems to be intended to be a comedic view, part travelog, part revisiting and reminiscing. Bryson is known for his sometimes cantankerous humor, but he was down right dower in this book: cranky, curmudgeonly, cheap and negative for almost every leg of the trip. Claiming that he wanted to see what England had to offer before he left it, he only complained that it was not how he remembered it. He took umbrage at every penny he used to stay or travel or see sites, but insisted on doing little to no research on how to find hotels or attractions that might be more to his taste. For a reader who wanted to learn more about England, who was excited to be on this journey, every aspect was marred by his bad attitudes. His humor was not black, but unfunny and rude most of the time. His travels only saw small pockets of fun or pleasure, and although well written, this was mostly a joyless read. Seemingly designed for those who might find the observations on England’s eccentricities amusing, Bryson was more about fat shaming and calling people stupid rather then making “astute” notes of the “foibles” of the nation (as the NYT seems to have said, according to the cover). I finished this book solely for the glimpses of interesting history or landscape that managed to survive in it. I wish I could recommend a book that showed England in a better light. I cannot really recommend this book at all. If you like Bryson’s writing I would skip this book. If you want to try him, I would not suggest starting here.

Do you have a favorite travelog? What countries are you most interested in reading about?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

A good Tree of The Week.
This is such a cool look at how London has changed over the years.
Was Forest Fenn a fraud?
”We should not settle for single-use plastics”
I’ve seen a few of these under 90 minute movies, but there are many that I haven’t seen or would rewatch.
Speaking of movies I super excited for the new version of Dune! Have you seen the trailer? I have never seen the Lynch movie, but will be watching that before I see the new movie. I’m also listening to the audio book now!

Something New: Tracking Your 1/2 Hours

One thing I’m always worried about is not having enough time to do everything I want to do. I find that worrying about this often wastes time! I fear that I can only accomplish a few goals for the day, or that I cannot get to the avocations that fulfill me due to work, obligations, or indecision. I often see people navigating the hours of their day will little to no problems or fear of not getting enough done. They don’t seem as worried about this problem as I do. There could be many reasons for this, but I often envy their organizational skills or ways that they prioritize their time. Where do they find the time?

A friend suggested breaking down my day by the 1/2 hour and seeing what I spend my time on. Perhaps then I can see where it goes!

Thinking it a great idea I started right away. I tracked my half hours for a little over a week. It may not have been an idea week as we were dealing with a lot. Our eldest cat was dying and it took a lot of time and care. Although this fact might have made my week a little more scattered and my priorities slightly different than a “normal” week, I still think marking my 1/2 was super informative!!

I started by finding a physical notepad to write the full day in 1/2 hour increments. You could of course do this digitally as well, but I like to sit down and write and read these sort of experiments. After each day, I would look over what I had done. I added a spot for notes, but never really used this, keeping my notes in my head, instead. I always knew I was a flitter, but this productivity experiment confirmed it. Aside fro work and sleep, almost every half hour was divided with several tasks. Writing and watching youtube, sewing and listening to a book, a little cleaning, a little eating, a little work. I flitted from one thing to another, never really getting into the meat of any project or task. This was heightened by having to give our cat meds, fluids and check on him every few minutes, but only slightly. Although, this wasn’t exactly new info, seeing it this way put it in some kind of new perspective.

Working for other people, commuting to work, getting ready for work took up a lot of time. Seeing all those half hours and knowing that they didn’t even include the time spent each section of the day worrying about work was also not a surprise. Also, not surprising, I spend a lot of time sleeping. The later, I prob won’t change much, but having a more set wake up and nap time would be helpful.

Overall, this exercise made me realize some things about how I work and what I do that I would like to change. I now know that grouping time to do certain tasks would be more productive for me. For instance, taking a solid hour or ore to write, read, clean, etc… would help me for getting things done and having more time for all that I want to do. Now I just have to put that into practice!

Would you try this exercise?